ABOUT 1,500 jobs will be created at Jaguar's Browns Lane site, which has been jointly bought by an Australian property giant and a Birmingham firm.

The developers who yesterday purchased the 100-acre site are aiming to draw up their master plan for offices and warehouses within six months.

The new owners - Australian property giants Macquarie Goodman and Birmingham-based Stoford Developments - are adamant that Jaguar, and the city's proud automotive history, will retain a significant presence at the site in Allesley.

Jaguar's wood-veneering facility, which employs about 400 people, will remain at the park, as will the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust Museum and Partnership Centre.

Stoford director Dan Gallagher said: "We see keeping the area's automotive heritage within the site as being quite an important and attractive element for businesses.

"We are looking to move forward quite quickly and submit a planning application to Coventry City Council within the next six months."

He added: "With a superb location at the hub of the UK's motorway network, the former Jaguar factory site is sure to appeal to a wide range of national and regional organisations that require new headquarters of major distribution centres."

Units of up to 1.2million sq ft are planned. Building work is likely to begin in early 2008.

Bruce Usher, development director of Macquarie Goodman's UK logistics business, said: "The new development will create new jobs and provide a welcome economic boost to the local community."

A previous deal to sell Browns Lane to construction firm Delamar, run by entrepreneur Peter de la Marche, collapsed last October and the 117-acre site was put back on the market.

The Browns Lane site was home to Jaguar car production from 1951 to 2005. In its heyday, it boasted a workforce of over 3,500.

More than 2,000 jobs were lost when production stopped at the site.

Labour opposition leader on the city council John Mutton said: "I'm very disappointed. Coventry is turning from the workhouse of the world to the warehouse of the world.

"Here we are in Coventry, where we had Jaguar and Peugeot, which had skilled jobs paying good wages, and both sites sound as if they are going for warehousing.

"The way this country is going, we'll be importing stuff from elsewhere as we'll have no manufacturing."

City development director John McGuigan said developers were hoping to attract several headquarters office buildings as well as warehousing.

Chamber approves of mixed use

BUSINESS leaders in Coventry welcomed news of the sale.

Darren Jones, vice-president of Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: "It was always crucial that Browns Lane remained as a key employment site in the city.

"These are very early stages and we would obviously like to see more details of what is planned but the fact that it will be utilised for a mix of uses touches all the right buttons."

He also welcomed the fact that Jaguar would still employ about 400 people on the site.